Horror in the heart of Portland

A long line stretched out from the Hollywood Theatre beneath the slowly setting sun. Men and women stood outside, waiting for the doors to open. One man wore a woolen squid head hat, another had his face painted like Frankenstein’s monster.

An event program in the form of a faux newspaper that was handed out to the anxious attendees included a headline for the festival’s premier event, a schedule on the back and a series of black comedy entries, such as a Peanuts-style comics section and an article about a star-eating deity that a cultist named after his girlfriend.

The doors opened and the people rushed in. Inside, vendors on both floors were selling everything from old VHS tapes to T-shirts. Indie shorts about the end of the world played on all three of the theater’s screens, and a woman stood in line at one of the concessions windows asking if they served gluten-free pizza.

That was the scene at this year’s Lovecraft Film Festival, an event that celebrates the works of 1920s pulp fiction writer H.P. Lovecraft and provides a venue for indie filmmakers inspired by his unique brand of weird horror.

The event was begin in Portland 18 years ago by Andrew Migliore, who originally started the film festival as a small, day-and-a-half-long event that encouraged faithful adaptations of Lovecraft’s work (a feat that has often been tried with little success by major Hollywood studios).It has since grown to span three days and occupy every screen in the Hollywood Theatre. As of last year it has also spread to California, with an offshoot film festival held in Los Angeles.

This year’s show was organized by Brian Callahan, who took over for Migliore. Callahan admitted that organizing the event was “a stressful undertaking” but took pride in his work.

“Portland audiences are like no other audience,” Callahan said. “They’re interested, they’re engaged, and they’re intelligent…It’s the Portland audience that makes it so worthwhile.”

Callahan also credited Portland’s unique counterculture with making the festival a success.

“[Portland]’s dreary, it’s weird…and it’s a cool, casual city with strange tastes,” he said.

Callahan also credits the festival’s success to the city’s large number of Lovecraft fans, filmgoers and writers.

Callahan started out as a New Orleans resident with a Lovecraft interest, who first came to Portland to sell T-shirts at the festival. But he came to love the city and moved here, where he now runs the show for the foreseeable future.

For the uninitiated, Lovecraft was a writer of short horror fiction in the ’20s and ’30s who pioneered a new brand of gothic horror based on the ideas of occultism, otherworldly monsters, insanity and man’s insignificance compared to the cosmos.

Lovecraft died relatively unknown and destitute but has enjoyed an upswing in popularity in recent decades: Artists like Stephen King and John Carpenter have cited his work as inspiration.

Lovecraft’s works have also proven to be fertile inspiration for amateur filmmakers: This year’s festival featured more than 30 short films as well as nine full-length feature films. One full-length was a recut version of Clive Barker’s cult-horror magnum opus Nightbreed, which included lost footage that had been cut by the film’s producers in order to market the movie as a slasher film.

This year’s event also tried to cater to area college students with an interest in filmmaking with its “Lovecraft Under the Gun” competition, which gave amateur film crews 72 hours to develop a horror film for the festival.

The competition was advertised on PSU grounds with fliers posted in dorms, but no students applied.

“We’re aiming for a college crowd,” Callahan said, “but we have trouble reaching it.”

The festival offers more than just films. The event has proven to be a haven for all kinds of people and products, with a bent toward the weird and hard-to-define. Horror writers from across the country gathered and conducted a question-and-answer session about their craft and their inspiration on Sunday afternoon, and an art contest was held the day before.

Another of the fest’s success stories apart from Callahan is Sean Branney of the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society, a group that started as a bunch of friends playing a Lovecraft-themed tabletop game that now produces Lovecraft-themed media.

Branney and his friends submitted a short film back in the early 2000s a spoof documentary that mixed horrific monsters with the musical Fiddler on the Roof, and have since grown their society into a small media empire with short story adaptations of Lovecraft’s work in the style of 1920s War of the Worlds-esque radio dramas and two feature-length films.

“The film festival is a huge part of our experience,” Branney said. “It’s a chance for us to come meet and hang out with people who share [the interest] in Lovecraft that we have, and we make movies, so it’s a great venue to share the works that we create and sell our weird products. So it’s a win-win kind of fit for us.”

Late on Saturday night, Branney and other members of his group gave a live performance of one of their radio shows on the main stage of the Hollywood Theatre. Every seat in the auditorium was filled with fans intently watching the performance, and every one of them gave the society a standing ovation when the radio show concluded.

The three-day-long event was completely crowd-funded through a Kickstarter campaign. Those who invested in the festival were rewarded with access to a pre-party on Thursday night and several after-parties.

One donor was Steven Kick, a Portland resident who lives close to the theater. Kick donated $300 and was rewarded with a three-day pass to the event, a collection of books and posters on sale from vendors and an article in the festival’s faux-newspaper/program.

“It was just one way to support the efforts here,” Kick said, “and then also have a
one-of-a-kind souvenir from the event…it’s one of the best experiences [when] you can help and contribute at the same time.”

Callahan and the other organizers are always looking to improve the Lovecraft Film Festival with an eye to next year.

“I try to keep my nose to the grindstone…and keep trying to make [the event] as good as possible,” Callahan said. He also mentioned that he has been considering the idea of putting the film festival on the road and touring theaters across the nation, but no concrete plans have been made.

“I take pride in my work,” Callahan said. “It can always be better, but I am happy that there is a place for Lovecraftian film and fiction.”